


the branch gives way

by mildlyobsessive



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Suicide Attempt, and so I did too, except, its from the perspective of the tree???, pretty much everyone does the tree scene, pretty much this is a very sentimental tree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2018-11-14 07:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11203344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlyobsessive/pseuds/mildlyobsessive
Summary: You hit one of my branches on the way down, Evan. It snapped off, followed you to the bottom. Considering the way things turned out, I guess we match now.





	the branch gives way

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this because im basic but not basic enough to admit that im basic so yeah
> 
> also i was literally just like "oh that poor tree" and all of a sudden this tree is a sentient being with like a very strong emotional connection to Evan in my head and this is what happened

_He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season. And its leaf does not wither. And in whatever he does, he prospers.  
-Psalm 1:3_

. . .

I grew watching you grow, sheltered under the canopy my branches provided. Such a little thing, even now, full of excitement. You hold such wonder for the world around you, Evan. Always have, from the first time your parents brought you here. You must have been three, maybe four, but you played ring-a-round-the-rosy around me. You ate lunch in the pockmarked shadows cast by my leaves, and then, when you were full, you fell asleep leaning against my trunk. Your head lolled over and your mother just looked at you like you were the most precious thing in the world.

Smart woman, your mother.

You kept coming back, from then on. You loved it here. I witnessed countless picnics shared between you and your parents, innumberable games of tag shared around my forest. I listened to you recite the Giving Tree to yourself over and over, trying to make the syllables decipher themselves to you.

_"Once there was a tree, and she loved a little boy. . ._

Evan, I always thought you were reading about us.

The first time you came alone, you were seven. You sat and cried like the child you were, legs hugged to your chest, eyes red and puffy. Something was very wrong, I could tell. I tried to ask you what, but my voice sounds like the rustling of breeze through foliage, Evan. You couldn't understand me.

Your mother came eventually. I knew she would. After that day, there were plenty of picnics and trips, just like before. But your father was never there. I never did see him again. 

I don't think you were missing much, Evan. I can always tell when it comes to people. Your father, he was a greedy man. He always thought the grass was greener on the other side. I could see it in his eyes, in the hard sliver of envy occupying them. 

He wasn't worth your time.

I know you had a hard time in middle school. You came more, by yourself now, with no one hunting you down for running off. That's when the shaking started, right? 

I was so scared the first time that happened in front of me. Your breath grew so labored. Your hands started to shake, like my branches do in the midst of the worst thunderstorms. You looked so desperate, Evan, so terrified. I wanted to help. You have to believe me, I did. 

But I don't know how to help you. I don't even think you know how to help yourself.

I'm sorry.

You never brought friends. I thought that was something boys your age did? I'd seen other children your age, limbs singing with energy and laughter, playing tag and hide-and-seek and other games I loved to watch. You never did that. I wish you had. I would have loved to see you laugh like that, watch your eyes light up. I'm sorry if that's an odd thing to say. It's just that my life is so monotonous, so full of the same sky and the same trees, and you were this beautiful novelty. 

When you started working here, I was so excited. You would come marching over with your little uniform and scale my branches. Your feet, encased in those oversized hiking boots, would grind against my bark, but I didn't mind. I never minded, Evan. Never.

Things were pretty good, then. I saw you everyday, and, yes, your smile was a little tight. Sometimes, when you thought you were alone, you'd drop all pretense, and the empty look in your eyes startled me. My little Evan, always so full of light. I didn't like seeing you like that. So, yes, I worried about you, but things were good because I saw you everyday, got to enjoy the companionship I felt with you. It was around then that the attacks got more common. At least once a week you would curl up under my branches, heave like there wasn't enough air in the world to fill your lungs. It hurt, seeing you like that.

That day, I could tell something was different the second I saw you. Your eyes were so blank, Evan. One time, years back, a selfish, horrible man marched in here dressed in fluorescent orange. He held a gun, cruel and awful looking, and with it he murdered a poor young deer. The look of the dead animal's eyes -that was the only place I'd seen the expression you were wearing before, Evan. The skin rimming your eyes was red and puffy, and you'd obviously been crying, but it seemed as if you'd decided that the time for tears was over. Frankly, you looked too tired for tears. Your shoulders slumped and the way you walked looked as if you were moving through quicksand, fighting for every foot of ground you gained. 

You looked so, so _tired_.

I assumed you were going to take nap (it wouldn't have been the first time, after all), so when I felt the treads of your hiking boots on my bark I was rather surprised.

You just kept climbing, Evan. You scrambled up my branches, retreating closer to the clouds than you ever had before. With every step you took, I felt fear bubble up in me like sap. Something was _wrong_ , Evan. I knew that.

When you reached a point where my branches were far too thin for you to possibly make your way higher, you sat, slumped against my trunk. I felt you legs wrap around the branch where you rested. 

I don't remember how long you sat there, Evan, staring at the forest floor beneath you. I only know that with every passing moment, I became more and more frightened. Emotion is odd for me, a foreign experience from some foreign species. But I'd never been more terrified in my entire life than I was in that moment, feeling you lean forward and snap back the second you felt gravity calling you to the ground. You did this over and over again Evan, like you were taunting physics itself, daring it to take you, _begging_ for it. I tried to yell, really, but all you heard was the rustle of leaves, and it didn't dissuade you.

You placed your hand against my trunk, steadying yourself, and god was that torture. Feeling the calm resolve ripple through you, being powerless to do anything to abet it. 

_"Once there was a tree, and she loved a little boy"_

I did, Evan. I really, truly did. I still do.

Please.

 _Please_ , don't.

But I'm not a person, not in possession of an ability to communicate. All I am is bark and leaves and lumber waiting to be cut apart, and those things can love, yes, but they can't stop a boy who has convinced himself that he's too far gone to save. 

Right before you did it, you closed your eyes. Blocked out this forest, this sanctuary that you had retreated to like a monk for so very long. Maybe you didn't want to think about the damage you would do to the saplings below you. Maybe you were summoning the last ounce of willpower you had left inside of you. Maybe you didn't feel like you deserved this place, this home anymore.

If it was the last one, Evan, you were right. You don't deserve this place. You deserve every forest on the globe, every birdsong and soaring tree Mother Nature has in her arsenal. You deserve _everything_ , Evan. Please believe it. 

I can speculate all I want, but the truth is that I am unable to read minds, even one I knew as intimately as yours. So I don't know what you were thinking, although I'm sure it was exhausted and desperate and much too final for my liking. All I know is that you squeezed your eyes shut and leaned, leaned so far that when gravity giggled and grasped you tightly it was too late to escape from her hold. 

You hit one of my branches on the way down, Evan. It snapped off, followed you to the bottom. Considering the way things turned out, I guess we match now. 

I say this because I watched you shatter onto the forest floor, watched your arm give way like a tree branch. And as you lay there, limb bent unnaturally, coated in grass stains and hour-old tear tracks, I wept for you. 

You laughed. It was bitter and lonely and frightened, and all I wanted was to protect you. All I've wanted was to protect you, Evan, and I couldn't even do that. 

When you finally pulled yourself onto your feet after what felt like a decade of stifled sobbing, I was so scared you might climb higher, try harder. When you stumbled back the way you came, broken arm dangling uselessly at your side, I was so relieved. 

In the emergency room, later, you heard the angry whistle of what sounded like wind. It wasn't. It was me, Evan, it was all of us, talking, screaming, sobbing in our own way. All for you.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [a poem from the point of view of Evan’s hoodie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13061061) by [zukoandtheoc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zukoandtheoc/pseuds/zukoandtheoc)




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